Sean McCarthy (b. 1976 in San Antonio, TX) received his BFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin and his MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University. His paintings and drawings have been exhibited internationally at venues such as Fredericks & Freiser and Marlborough Chelsea in New York, One in the Other in London, and VOLTAshow in Basel, Switzerland. He was one of twelve artists featured at the Desert Island Comic Zine Party at the Whitney Museum of American Art, which produced a limited-edition screenprinted publication for the event. His handmade artist's books and zines have also appeared at curated events such as the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, and a global survey of zine culture called "Publish and Be Damned" at Cubitt Artists Gallery in London.

McCarthy is currently Associate Professor and Chair of the Art Department at Lehman College of the City University of New York. He has given lectures and critiques as a visiting artist at Yale University, Rhode Island School of Design, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and the University of South Florida. He teaches a seminar on the grotesque in art and culture for the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, and has also taught studio art at Pratt Institute and the New York Institute of Technology. He has curated exhibitions at the Lehman College Art Gallery, NYIT Manhattan and No Globe Exhibition Space in Brooklyn. He is a member of the editorial board of Glossator: Theory and Practice of the Commentary, an academic journal supported by Open Humanities Press. He lives and works in New York City.